Claire Kincaid

Claire Kincaid is a fictional character on the television series Law & Order, played by Jill Hennessy from 1993 to 1996.

Character overview

An Assistant District Attorney, Kincaid was portrayed as an idealistic, outspoken feminist and agnostic who became increasingly disillusioned with her job. She was vocally pro-choice, opposed the death penalty, and had ambivalent feelings towards drug prohibition; these political views often came into conflict with the realities of the legal system.

Notable episodes

During her first season on the show, she is paired with Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), in what is portrayed as a strictly professional, almost teacher-student relationship. In the episode "Discord", he threatens to fire her after she fails to share key information she learned in interviewing the victim with Stone, which subsequently comes out in trial, jeopardizing the case. He relents at the end of the episode and refuses to accept her resignation, relating to her because of a key mistake he made early in his career. Beginning with the episode "Second Opinion", she is paired with Jack McCoy, the new executive assistant DA. In the two seasons they appeared in together, she and the brash, competitive McCoy often butt heads over the social and political implications of their trial strategies, as well as McCoy's penchant for going to legal extremes to get a conviction. The two eventually form a close bond, however, briefly becoming lovers. (This fact was generally depicted on screen via nuance rather than any direct references; it was not until "Sideshow", an episode set some time after the character's death, that it is explicitly stated on screen that such a relationship existed.) In the episode "Censure", it is revealed that she had a three-month affair with Judge Joel Thayer, for whom she clerked as her first job out of Harvard Law School. She is censured for her actions and briefly resigns from the DA's office, but she returns later in the episode. In the sixth season finale episode "Aftershock," as Kincaid is considering leaving the DA's office, she is killed when her car is struck by a drunk driver as she drives an inebriated Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) home from a bar. McCoy is still haunted by her death, as evidenced by his intense, legally questionable efforts to prosecute a drunk driver in "Under the Influence", and his indignation at being questioned about the circumstances of her death in "Sideshow". Following her death, Briscoe re-enters Alcoholics Anonymous and remains sober for the rest of his life; in the first episode of the seventh season, "Causa Mortis", he implies that he feels his drinking was responsible for her death. Kincaid is replaced as McCoy's assistant DA by Jamie Ross (Carey Lowell) in "Causa Mortis".

Behind the scenes

The character was written out to allow Hennessy to leave the show to pursue a movie career. Kincaid was originally intended to be portrayed as paralyzed and leaving the DA's office for private practice after the events of "Aftershock". This was changed when Hennessy declined to make a single-episode return appearance the following season.